


Heavenly

by Bardwich



Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: Angel!Alfred, Discussions of Afterlife, I mean Drums very much got shot, M/M, They get Naked, gay love saves lives, mentions of injury, or something like that, soulmate Drumfred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:48:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23189497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bardwich/pseuds/Bardwich
Summary: Drummond gets shot but miraculously survives. Is his remarkable recovery truly a miracle? Alfred has a secret he must reveal. Love is, after all, a piece of Heaven on Earth.
Relationships: Edward Drummond/Alfred Paget
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	Heavenly

Alfred couldn’t really remember his life before. If you could call that a life. There was something—that, he knew. He also knew why he had been sent here. But if you asked him, he wouldn’t have been able to answer, not very well at least.

‘Lord Alfred?’ a young woman asked coming up to him in the foyer. Her face was drained of blood and her eyes wide with worry.

Alfred jumped on his feet at once.

‘Yes, that’s he-I mean, me am—I mean—‘

‘He’s asking for you.’

Lord Alfred followed her up carpeted stairs, increasingly aware of his own beating heart that felt as loud in his ears as the merciless gongs of a midnight bell, the silence even more eerie for the lack of rickety creaking below their feet—the house was still fairly new and with their money they mended every hairpin creak in the blink of an eye.

Alas, money couldn’t solve everything.

‘In there.’

‘Aren’t you coming in?’ Alfred asked, hearing himself ask this of her like a child afraid of crossing the road alone.

‘Don’t make him wait. He hasn’t got much time.’

Alfred turned away from her. He wanted to shout and scream and kick the wall but he moved not an inch until he pulled himself together. In he stepped, gripping the rim of his top hat so hard it would surely bend for good.

He was vaguely aware of the woman ushering a reluctant doctor out of the room but he cared little about his surroundings once he met his eyes—warm, brown, and softening despite obvious pain at the sight of his friend.

It had been a full day since Drummond had been shot. He saved a life. He saved the future of the country, changing the course of history itself. However, he was now giving his own as the price for it.

He called for him through dry lips, the effort of uttering his name worsening the abdominal pain where the wound was getting worse and worse by the hour.

Alfred had been angry. Angry that no one thought to inform him of any of this until only this afternoon. Of course, as far as the world was concerned, Lord Alfred was merely one of Mr Drummond’s good pals. Not even that. A peripheral colleague, really. No one came running to Alfred in tears in urgency and dragged him to Drummond’s sickbed.

Sickbed, for now. Deathbed by daybreak.

Drummond turned his palm upwards on the crimson bedcovers. Alfred, encouraged by their privacy, slipped his own into it.

‘God, you’re so cold,’ he said, feeling dumb for not finding something better to say.

‘Don’t turn away,’ Drummond pleaded in a whisper. Alfred was amazed to see he was smiling. ‘Let me see you.’

‘They said you were recovering.’

‘I was. But then…’

Drummond was referring to the fact that the doctor initially seemed confident in his survival as the bullet had not hit any vital organ, nor did it damage his spine. If the wound had just healed well, he would have been as good as new soon enough. Some of his blood was let, of course. Fresh air was administered. Alas, it was getting infected. The bandages around his middle were already soaked through with blood seeping into the bedsheets and the mattress. Whoever would be the new occupant of this room would be well advised to invest in a new bed. Drummond wished them well. Better than the 24 years he had got, so much of it wasted on petty ambitions and false affection.

Drummond, incredibly, smiled. Why?

‘I’m relieved.’

‘You’re relived?’

‘Well, not relieved because I am causing you grief. But those are not the tears of someone who regards our moments nothing more than an indiscrete little dalliance.’

Alfred squeezed Drummond’s hand ever so slightly.

‘No, never, Drummond. If you knew.’

‘I do know. I do love you, Alfred. I can say it, now that… Whatever you think, whatever they say, however confused I may have been about other things, I love you. Perhaps I have for longer than I know.’

Perhaps it would have hurt less if Alfred hadn’t known this. Too late now.

‘I suppose it is better this way.’

‘Pardon?’

‘I won’t have sinned.’

Alfred wondered whether Drummond was delirious as a result of the injury or some medication. He listened as he went on, explaining calmly.

‘I won’t have lied to Florence. I won’t have married her under false pretences and taken away her chances of love. I won’t have cheated. I won’t have broken the law. Perhaps this means I can still go to Heaven.’

‘What are you talking about, Drummond—’

‘Alfred.’

‘Of course you are going to Heaven—’

‘Alfred, please.’

‘No, in fact, you’re not going anywhere. You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.’

Alfred could say that if he wanted, Drummond thought as he let him, to reassure himself more than the man dying slowly right before him. God knew Alfred needed it, his whole body was shaking.

‘I hope Heaven does exist, Alfred. Because if it does, and if I have been good enough to be allowed entry, I know it will be… Scotland. That garden. That lake. Hercules. You. A midsummer evening…’

The way Drummond looked at Alfred left no doubt as to what he meant.

Alfred felt almost inappropriate somehow thinking how beautiful Drummond looked even then, even in this wretched state, on this sad day. He gave him what he wanted. A kiss on his lips, hoping to give him warmth and life and wishing against all odds that he would be alright, miraculously alright. He lay his hand gently on Drummond’s body, careful not to hurt him, but wanting to help—if he could just give his own life up to save that of his love’s!

Drummond was moving his lips, kissing back gladly albeit feebly. Until he wasn’t. Alfred could call his name, once or a hundred times, but he wouldn’t move.

He was drifting for four more days.

The palace page boy asking for Lord Alfred might as well have been an executioner. The note was so small on the silver tray. He protested against reading it, touching it even, then grabbed for it with hunger all the same.

Miss Coke caught him as he swayed. Her aunt tutted and hung her head. The inevitable tragedy.

But Lord Alfred’s sobs were turning into laughter.

‘I must go and see him!’

He had bolted out the door, out of the Palace, out the iron gates faster than Miss Coke managed to utter anything.

‘Has he gone mad?’ Buccleuch croaked. It wouldn’t be wise for the boy to display his true feelings about his friend so overtly, no matter how tormenting his grief is.

Miss Coke picked up the note and smiled brightly at her aunt.

‘Aunt! Aunt! His sister says Mr Drummond is well!’

Drummond’s butler was flattened between the front door and the coat rack. The tall, blond, unshaven blur of a man muttered a quick apology and took the steps two at a time.

‘But how could this be possible, Doctor?’

‘Well, sometimes wounds get worse before they get better,’ Doctor Ashwind explained vaguely to Miss Drummond, scratching his thinning, white hair. ‘Self-cleansing membrane… uh, recovery is not unheard of in some cases…’

‘But this is a shocking recovery! Verging on a miracle!’

‘The fever needs to work itself through the body, improving the humours…’

‘But, Doctor—’

‘Leave him alone, Charlotte,’ Drummond cut in gently. ‘The doctor has helped us greatly. Doctor, I’m sorry, my sister fancies herself a medic just because she’s read some books. Enough of the arguments. The point is I am healed and feeling so well!’

‘I still don’t understand—’

‘Alf--Lord Alfred!’

Alfred’s heart skipped a beat as he was noticed lingering in the doorway awkwardly. He was lost for words at the sight.

Drummond was alive and well. He was awake. And alert. Sitting at the foot of his bed, examined by his sister and the doctor. The colour has returned to his cheeks. His eyes were shining brightly with life and energy and enthusiasm. His smile was so wide his dimples were showing.

‘Doctor, may I introduce you to—’ Drummond began.

‘We know Lord Alfred, Edward,’ Miss Drummond explained. ‘He’s been here with us often while you were unconscious.’

‘Were you?’

Alfred stepped into the bedroom, a timid smile dancing on his lips and as always when he felt the need to ease tensions he was blinking up at the others through eyelashes. Funny, even now that he knew Drummond had pulled through, his fingernails were not kinder to the rim of his top hat.

He was staring at Drummond so intensely the invalid was overcome with the need to pull up his shirt and cover his bare skin. Alfred had just caught sight of the wound, which was indeed miraculously better than any gunshot wound after 5 days, especially that it had been apparently fatally infected beforehand. Now it was a mere scar, round, reddish and unbecoming on Drummond’s otherwise godlike physique but healed over and no longer bleeding. Alfred had seen worse injuries as a child from falling over ice skating.

‘Perhaps we should continue this later,’ Miss Drummond suggested. ‘Doctor? Tea?’

‘Ask Clarke to take care of the finances.’

‘I can pay the doctor myself, Edward.’

‘But—’

‘Oh, for goodness sake, come with me to the study, Doctor Ashwind. And you, Lord Alfred, make sure Edward doesn’t stand. He had the strange idea just earlier that he should go walking in the park or even riding, both of which are absolutely out of the question as yet. As for you Edward, I trust you’ll be in good hands.’

Edward was perplexed at the meaningful look his sister shot him above her glasses before ushering the doctor out of the room. Alfred, however, merely bit back a knowing smile.

While Edward was fighting for his life over the past five days, Alfred spent a considerable time in the Drummond house, during which he made her acquaintance. He had been here, keeping vigil while she slept and when she rose he returned to the Palace to bathe and change and he was back by noon, every day.

One evening, she pulled him aside in the salon.

He expected her to cordially but disappointingly ask him to visit less as his presence was such that no reasonable explanation could account for it. It was probably proving rather embarrassing for Miss Drummond when their family came to visit, not to mention a distraught Lady Florence. He tried, fear not—they were good friends, Drummond reminded him of a dear loved one, or he didn’t want Drummond’s sister to deal with all this alone. Oh, how courteous, Lord Alfred—but how transparent, he realised as she did not ask him to leave but presented him with a small box that late night.

‘I want you to have this. In the event he doesn’t wake up. I think he would have wanted you to have something. And I wanted to give it to you while we weren’t bothered in the daytime.’

‘What is it?’

‘Open it.’

Inside the box was a silver locket. In it, a lock of Drummond’s chestnut hair. Whether this was talking of the devil, he didn’t know. Friends exchanged locks of hair even while alive but it was more commonly handed out as a token of the dearly departed. Nevertheless, whatever happened he would cherish that one gorgeous curl, remembering the way he twirled one around his fingers while kissing him in the light of the sunset.

‘You must love him very much,’ she stated, not asked.

His silence was confirmation of this truth. He was so touched he forgot himself and hugged her right then and there. She let him cry and even patted his back once or twice.

‘Alright, that’s enough,’ she said as she wiggled out of the hug and left for bed.

He would explain about this to Drummond later. For now, he just wanted to look at him. Him, sitting on his bed, full of life and his eyes full of love for Alfred.

‘How are you f-feeling?’

‘Good. Really good, Alfred. Really, really good!’ Drummond replied, amazed at his own words himself.

He reached out an arm for Alfred, who fell on his knees and kissed the back of his hand for lack of words.

‘Alfred—’

Alfred jumped up abruptly. ‘Perhaps it will be easier to say this if I’m…’ he cut in and turned away from Drummond completely.

It nearly cracked him up to see Alfred turn his back on him and talk to the pane of the window overlooking the gravelled street but Drummond listened.

‘I was thinking a lot in these past five, torturous days. Your words are still ringing in my head deafeningly. You are so good. No, let me just say this—’ Alfred quickly rattled on lest Drummond interrupted him. ‘You are… _good_. The things you said about not having sinned and not having cheated and… not just that but in the restaurant before… I cannot look into your eyes again unless you forgive me. I was completely wrong. Life on Earth is feeble and short and I, of all people, stood in your way to live it to the fullest before it was too late. And now that it’s not too late, just know that I will never again try to stop you from fulfilling your destiny to be happy, however you want to achieve that. I can’t protect you from everything, know that. If you want to keep away from me for the sake of staying “good”, I will understand that. And if I no longer factor into your happiness at all, not even as a friend, I shall do my best to accept that, too. I’ve no right to determine your future. But if you could find it in your heart to forgive me—’

Alfred felt warm hands on his shoulders, squeezing him gently, and his breath hitched. He felt Drummond stand close behind him, fold himself against the arches of his back as if scared to pluck feathers off invisible angel wing. He rested his forehead on Alfred’s shoulder. It was when Alfred reached up to lay his hand over that of Drummond’s that he mustered more courage and nuzzled Alfred’s golden hair and pressed his lips against the sensitive skin behind his ear.

‘I forgive you.’

Alfred melted into Drummond’s touch. Finally, after such unnatural coldness for days, every nerve and fibre of his being was filled with warmth and contentment. Of course he turned around in his arms, and they were kissing like it was the most natural thing in the world. The stench of dried blood gauze faded and they drank each other in like an oasis in the desert. A breeze dusting off all dirt. A fresh start.

‘Determine it.’

‘What?’ Alfred asked, distracted and sad to part from his lover’s lips.

‘Determine my future. I want you to.’

‘Mr Drummond…’

‘Call me Edward.’

‘Edward.’

‘Alfred…’

‘Edward…’

They whispered their names against each other’s lips as they found each other again. Far from stopping, Drummond was glad to use his body after being ready for the hills and so deepened the kiss eagerly, tasting Heaven—

She didn’t shriek when she walked in on them. They had fled apart. She might not have seen. Had she? She hadn’t.

Had she?

‘He mustn’t stand, Lord Alfred.’

‘Charlotte,’ Drummond began, scrambling for an explanation but she needed none.

‘Don’t, it’s fine.’

‘But…’

‘I said it’s fine!’

‘Miss Drummond—’

‘I have often found, gentlemen, that the best way to soften the edge of an embarrassing conversation is not to have it. Now. Just sit down before you faint!’

‘But—’

‘Listen, Millie will be here with the bathwater in ten minutes exactly. I’ll leave you to it until then, but papa and mama are coming to visit in about an hour. So…’ she nodded towards the bed. Probably for Drummond to sit down at last, although she suspected her brother might do more than just sit and wait for the maid on the bed with Lord Alfred.

It was a miracle. It was a scientific anomaly. A medical impossibility.

Lord Alfred kept quiet even though he had seen more of the wound as the doctor, and his assistant, and a group of medical students too once, examined Drummond again and again. Lord Alfred was also allowed to help him bathe without breaking the rules of modesty or propriety as far as the outside world was concerned.

‘Why can’t Clarke help you?’ Charlotte asked one afternoon, smirking behind her book.

‘I prefer a friend.’

‘Ahem… You _are_ perfectly capable of climbing in and out of the bathtub all by yourself, of course, Edward.’

‘Oh, no, I am so weak, Charlotte!’

‘Oh, you are, are you?’

‘Yes! I definitely need my friend’s help—or do you want me to fall and hit my head on the tiles?’

‘Just make sure you’re downstairs by tea.’

She could shake her head all she wanted, Edward would have run up the stairs if he had been allowed to run.

All this caution was easy to dismiss as feminine fussing. But even he had to admit, he was remarkably fine considering he had been shot through his torso a mere week ago.

‘I mean… I feel so lucky, don’t get me wrong!’ Edward would say one evening, checking his now pretty much fully healed wound in the full length mirror in his bedroom while Alfred pretending to read on his bed. ‘But I can’t help being baffled. Is this normal?’

‘Yes, normal,’ Alfred reassured him in an overly enthusiastic voice. ‘Not unheard of at all. The doctor said so. I asked papa, too, and he’s a Waterloo hero. I am assured, this is completely ordinary.’

Somehow, Edward still had his doubts.

‘It just seems too good to be true.’

Alfred didn’t realise he was touching his own stomach hidden under layers of fabric.

What did it matter when he was alright, though? Edward let the matter go.

Unlike his sister, Charlotte, who, far from accepting Edward’s remarkable recovery. Even a fortnight later on one of the hottest August nights in anyone’s memory she kept digging deeper and deeper into the matter. She would spend day and night researching in the library and nothing could account for any of this. She kept pestering Edward to show her his wound, too.

‘Stop it, Charlotte—No, stop!’ he would plead in annoyance when she was once again at it, this time literally chasing him around the study with a magnifying glass in her hand.

‘Let me just take a quick look,’ she said, circling a large indoor plant to get to him, ‘I just want to see something.’

‘No!’ he protested, hopping over the recamier.

‘Why not?!’

‘Because—because.’

‘”Because.” Well, you’ve really convinced me now!’ she said with sarcasm, closing in on him cowering behind the leather armchair in the corner.

‘Enough, the heat’s driving you insane.’

‘Yes, blame the heat, whatever, just show us the scar, will you?’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?!’

‘Because there’s nothing to see, alright?’ he blurted out at last.

She straightened up, confounded.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean just what I mean. There’s nothing. There’s nothing there. It’s gone.’

‘What—the scar?’

‘Yes, the scar.’

‘Edward, you’ve been _shot_.’

‘I know.’

‘Shot _through_.’

‘I know, funnily enough, I was there. I’m telling you, it’s hardly there. Actually, it’s not there at all. Completely healed. Vanished.’

‘But Edward, that’s ridiculous—’

‘For goodness sake, Charlotte,’ he said and undid the middle two buttons of his waistcoat and shirt, revealing the place on his abdomen where the nasty wound had once been. Now, it was completely smooth, as if nothing had happened. ‘See? It’s the same in the back. Satisfied? I have to rest.’

Edward fled through the garden.

It was past midnight and she was still turning the pages of a book by candlelight in the study by the open garden doors. Turning the pages but not reading, not looking down. Just waiting. Perhaps if a breeze had moved that stifling hot air—perhaps if she had got proper answers.

There he was—Lord Alfred nearly met his maker she scared him so much on his way sneaking into the house through the orangery.

No judgement, no hostility, just a word—a word? He could do a word. Was Edward unwell was his first thought, still afraid, as she was.

‘He’s fine,’ she said in an eerie, even voice unnerving Alfred. ‘He’s perfectly fine. In fact, literally, perfectly fine. If a bit frustrated.’

‘Why so, may I ask?’

‘He’s frustrated at me for fussing. Only, I can’t help feeling like there is something not right about all this. Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled that my dearest brother has survived that awful incident. But the circumstances are such that if I believed in the supernatural, I would cry witchcraft. Lord Alfred, Edward’s scar is healed.’

‘I know it is.’

‘No, it’s _healed_ ,’ she said, standing and approaching Alfred in the stifling darkness. ‘It’s gone. He looks as perfect as ever. No one would be able to tell he was ever hurt at all. I can’t understand… I just can’t…’

Did she notice Lord Alfred’s hand shot to his abdomen?

He edged towards the door.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Upstairs… he’s waiting for me.’

‘But what about this?’ she pressed on. ‘Surely, we need a second opinion, another doctor…’

‘Miss Drummond, I understand your concern. However, the fact is he is well again. Why pick at a scar--’

‘A scar that’s not there!’ she insisted, albeit fearing if she kept saying it people would think _she_ was mad.

‘—why press this matter, then, why insist on delving into the medical aspects of this?’

She looked him in the eye without backing down. ‘Because. It fascinates me.’

Alfred sensed her intuition was at work as sharply as her reason. He made his excuses and went upstairs. A gentle knock was enough and Edward let him into his bedroom gladly.

They had spent a lot of time together recently, that was true. Alfred provided companionship for Edward’s recovery—not without stolen private moments but mostly staying chaste. Tonight, however, somehow, perhaps because of the all-pervading heatwave, without any premeditation or plan, they found themselves in bed, Edwards clothes coming off one by one in the heat of passion.

When he reached for Alfred’s buttons, however, he pulled away.

‘Alfred?’ No excuse came to Alfred’s lips—swollen and red from kissing. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘It’s… it’s too bright in here.’

‘It’s past midnight.’

‘The moonlight.’

‘Really? It’s quite overcast, humid, not a star in sight.’

‘Still, perhaps we should… the curtains…’

‘But I want to see you.’

‘I find I feel shy.’

‘I’ve seen you strip and jump into a lake in broad daylight upon a single word.’

‘That was then, this is now. Blow out the candles.’

‘Alright,’ Edward obliged at once.

‘It’s chilly,’ Alfred still insisted despite the heat, ‘Let’s get under the covers—’

‘My love, what’s wrong? Just tell me.’

Alfred, still panting but less from excitement and more out of nerves, got off Edward and sat on the bed some distance away from him. Edward, alarmed, sat up as well.

‘Are you having doubts?’ Edward’s face fell. He was so quick to give into gloom and self-doubt. ‘You don’t want to…’

‘I want to.’

‘I’d understand, it is a crime _and_ a sin—’

‘Oh, to hell with that nonsense.’

‘You don’t think it’s a sin?’

‘It isn’t one, full stop.’

‘How would you—‘

‘I know.’

‘Right, presume that. Then what is it? Do I not please you?’

‘Oh, Edward, you know I’m mad about you.’

‘Then what _is_ wrong?’

The silence was stretching and Alfred rubbed his face so as to brace himself.

‘You sister—your injury—’

‘Don’t tell me she’s been pestering you, too.’

‘But she’s right. Edward, look at yourself. You were dying. _Dying_. And yet,’ Alfred ran a gentle finger over the undeniable lack of any scarring on Edward’s skin. ‘I know why,’ he confessed.

Edward looked at him questioningly.

‘Before I say anything else, Edward, promise me you won’t bolt out the door. If not for my sake, remember you are, after all, in a state of immodesty.’

Edward blushed further. He promised it and listened.

‘I think I was good like you once. But then, I don’t really remember how, it was more of an impression, a state than any actions—it’s hard to explain. Edward… Heaven exists. I have been there. I’m afraid I was just too naughty to stay.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I was ordered out of Heaven for it. Something about my being, something in my essence… It’s not a bad thing, it’s just more fit for life as we know it right now, right here. So I was made a mortal. Lord and Lady Anglesey raised me as one of their own, not suspecting a thing. I had a purpose. That is the only thing I clearly remember. I can hear it in my head, the instruction plain as day: to prove that passion like that which lay in me so innately, naughty, mischievous, and sensual as it is, can be used for good. It needs to be fulfilled. Like a task incomplete, something to build before letting it go. And then I can be allowed back there into a state of perfect, eternal, peaceful bliss where I have need for nothing. I think I fulfilled that purpose with you.’

‘Alfred? What are you talking about? You’re not making any sense. Have you had a heatstroke at the Derby?’

‘You were dying. I wasn’t supposed to overstep… but I so wished, I sent a prayer out, and I wholeheartedly felt I would give up my return to Heaven if you just lived longer. If I could give half my life to you. I would have. I would now. And I would do it again, whatever else happens.’

‘Alfred? You’re really scaring me now.’

‘Don’t be scared, it’s nothing to be scared of. You don’t have to believe me. But…’

Alfred hesitated but there was nothing to it, he had to show the proof. Edward would have seen it sooner or later anyway. He unbuttoned his waistcoat, and then his billowy, white shirt as was the fashion of the day. He barely dared to look at Edward, somehow he was ashamed, which made little sense. When he did, Edward was quite frightened but unable to tear his eyes away.

Because right where Edward had been shot, where the mark of his injury should have been, about a span below Alfred’s heart was that horrible bullet wound, its round crater and its fleshy cracks in an imperfect radius, as if the bullet had torn through Alfred’s body, Alfred’s skin.

‘I know it’s incredible to believe. But if you don’t believe my words, you can see for yourself. It _was_ a miracle. I carry your injury so you don’t have to. I have given up my wings to save you.’

‘Wh-but—Al-Alfred, are—what, are you an—’

‘Go on, say it.’

‘An… an angel?’

‘An angel. Yes, I suppose I am. That’s the closest word that exists, so, yes, I am. Or, at least, I was.’

‘W-was?’

‘I have fallen. And I was supposed to return now that I have helped you and proved myself. But I’m still here. I think, for a reason. Or perhaps simply because I am the same as you. Flesh and bone and a soul.’

Alfred considered that only now. He’d been postponing it, afraid of his own future, but now he found if he was right he would have been the happiest man—yes, man—on Earth. That would mean he would get to live an honest, regular life, with Edward, till death parted them, and then—the unknown.

‘No… this is insane…’ Edward uttered.

Alfred was scared he would actually bolt out the door naked as a bird despite his promise but Edward only got up to get himself a glass of water, which he chugged wishing it was cold. The faint moonlight highlighted the curves of his muscles—a Renaissance statue walking on two legs, the image of health and youth.

‘Maybe I’ve died. And this is some kind of a test.’

Alfred expected this. Theories, wilder and wilder, would bound to come—this was a prank, a coincidence, a fever dream. If all this was true, why be so cynical, why urge Edward to marry, all those practical ideas—romantic notions of providence ill-explaining anything but then it would have been hard to explain anything about this at all. People tended towards the rational even in irrationality nowadays. There was no space for miracles anymore—that was probably for the better but it worried him. What if Edward would feel betrayed now? Led on? Made a fool out of? Or simply call for a mental asylum?

Alfred mimicked Edward from some days ago and walked up to him, embraced him, kissed the back of his neck, wet with perspiration in the humidity, massaged his tense muscles, and held him until he was calm. In spite of all the irrationality, Edward was filled with warmth not stifling like the summer air but comforting and right.

‘Suppose it’s true…’

Alfred smiled. Progress.

‘You saved me?’ Edward asked at last—plenty of minutes later, barely turning to meet Alfred’s honest, blue eyes.

‘I asked for you to be saved. And we were blessed.’

‘By God?’

‘It’s… if it’s easier to think about it in those terms, yes.’

‘If not God, what?’

Alfred didn’t like to disappoint Edward when he had that vibrant spark of curiosity in his warm, brown eyes.

‘It’s more of a… a feeling, but a feeling without senses. It’s… I’m sorry, I wish I could do better.’

Edward didn’t press that further. He was preoccupied by Alfred himself. His eyes wandered down to that wound.

‘So… is it… are you in pain?’

‘I’m not.’

‘Is it getting worse?’

‘Not anymore. At first I thought it would but it hasn’t. It is what it is now. A mark. That’s all.’

‘So you’re _not_ going to… die…’

‘Not yet, it would seem.’

‘But you will?’

‘As everyone must. It’s only unjust _when_ it happens—some get too little time, some too long.’

‘But, then, if it’s all real, if you’re an angel, if God—then, we—we shouldn’t—’ Edward gestured to themselves and reached for his dressing gown for modesty.

Alfred swiftly tore it out of his hands and undressed himself.

‘No, this is it, this is who I am, and who you are. Us. Together. Without all that seems to occupy people too much, all the material goods that don’t matter.’

‘But it _is_ wrong, then. You’ve fallen because of it.’

‘No. Shame is an earthly emotion. It has nothing to do with one’s soul. We are in love. Love knows no shame. No shame at all.’

‘But clearly, it does not please God—’

‘For Heaven’s sakes, listen,’ Alfred raked his brain and his intuition to explain as best as he could. ‘You don’t have to please some bearded, old man in the sky surrounded by trumpeting babies on wings. I’m sorry to shatter centuries of European art for you, dearest Edward but there it is.’

‘But you were l..lu…’ Edward had to whisper in the end, ‘Lustful.’

‘I did not fall from Heaven because I was lustful. I did because I still had a mission, a need that bound me to this life. I was a soul longing. But I long no more because I have found you. Do you understand?’

‘But then, surely… you speak of bliss, eternal peace. If that was waiting for me, dying would have been a relief. You prevented me from it. Was I going to go to Hell? Oh, God—’

‘No, there is no such thing—Edward, Edward, listen to me, stop tormenting yourself and hear me,’ Alfred said and stilled his beautiful love with his bare hand on Edward’s face. ‘Hell isn’t a cavernous well of pits where medieval ideas of torture are performed. I was in Heaven and yet that longing for a friend was a bit of Hell itself. That’s why it was better for me to seek you out. Had you died, you would have been in total bliss, too. For a while. Time, the concept as we know it on Earth is not so in the beyond—kind of like…’

‘When you’re dreaming?’

‘Yes! Yes, precisely. Sometimes it goes by in a flash, sometimes you feel as if you’ve lived through years in the span of a night.’

Alfred’s breath was a welcome breeze on Edward’s face, brushing his worries away as understanding dawned on him.

‘You would have been welcomed in Heaven without doubt, my dearest,’ Alfred continued. ‘But you would have had such a longing for journeys you haven’t completed. For passions not pursued, love not loved to the fullest. I would have longed, too. As I did. I thought I did the right thing. Or do you wish I hadn’t…?’

‘No. I don’t wish that. I just want to understand.’

‘You’ll understand it one day. Our love is not wrong. It was still in our destinies to find each other. Heaven on Earth. Truly. If you had gone on, we’d never have had a chance to truly be together. Then, maybe that yearning would have driven you to do the same, and I, and who knows what might happen in this life, perhaps you would have sought a love like this in another, perhaps in a happier year.’

‘Someone else?’

Alfred smiled at the doubtful tone. ‘Well, not necessarily. Perhaps if we are soulmates…’

‘Perhaps we have met, then, before---’

‘Oh, Edward, I see I have scared you—’

‘You haven’t. Or… Well… I just regret—Well, I regret it and I don’t: if you sought me out again, it means something stood in our way in a past life. That something went wrong.’

Edward actually crossed himself quickly—it all sounded blasphemous compared to his religious teachings when he said it out loud. He looked Alfred in the eyes seriously.

‘I would find you again. Forever.’

Alfred’s heart was so full and he beamed up at Edward.

‘I should have been honest with you,’ he admitted apologetically. ‘It’s just not something one divulges over a glass of port. You wouldn’t have believed me anyway.’

‘Wouldn’t I?’ Edward asked, his eyes so honest and captivated by Alfred. ‘I’ve often wondered, as if by instinct: how is this man real? How is he in my life? He, who looks like he has a piece of the sun in himself? It frightens me, yes, as death frightened me when I came so close to it. But it also makes perfect sense. Of course, you’re an angel. An actual angel. Of course.’

Edward was kissing him with just the same unabashed love as before.

‘Heavenly—’ Alfred giggled against his lips. ‘You _have_ given me Heaven on Earth, Edward. Scotland. That garden. That lake. Hercules. You. You. You.’

‘I have never been loved like this,’ Edward admitted out of the blue.

‘This is how you deserve to be loved.’

Edward was feeling too much all at once to have a witty comeback for that. Which, then, reminded him…

‘So… mischief, huh?’ he teased Alfred.

‘A little of it doesn’t hurt anyone.’

‘No, of course, it doesn’t—’

Alfred was shrieking as Edward tickled him mercilessly back to bed.

Somewhere in the house, Charlotte slammed her book shut, blew out the candles and covered her ears with a pillow to try to go to sleep.


End file.
